Sunday, November 07, 2010

The corporate media for two years have carefully cultivated a one-sided narrative, one that excluded the crimes and government malfeasance of former president George W. Bush, and his Republican congress, which nearly bankrupted the country, sending the US economy into a Lost Decade like that of Japan’s. The corporate media industrial complex has always preferred Republicans for their drive to deregulate and privatize, it is how the media industrial complex came to be, although former President Bill Clinton helped a great deal with the signing of the Telecommunication Act of 1996.

The corporate media creates self-fulfilling prophecies around Democrats losing or being out of touch as a way of putting Republicans back into presidential or, congressional power, and undeservingly so. It happened to Vice President Al Gore who with Clinton left the country a surplus; yet, somehow, Governor George W. Bush became President George W. Bush.

We’ve seen this before, when the Republicans are voted out of office in droves, the corporate media like Dr. Frankenstein resurrect them by white washing their history. Four years ago in 2006 just before the Democrats took both houses, I blogged :

Only two years ago, a Republican president put the country on the blink of a collapse, and yet the Republicans have risen from the political ashes of ignorance to repeat the same crimes. Republicans are like the children who never learn their lesson because their parents refuse to let them by covering their mistakes. It will be a matter of time before the Peter Principle kicks in once again to show the Americans who voted for this bunch that they are incapable of governance.

CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

Once more the American people have shown the world how incredibly unenlightened we are as a voting populace. Democratic voters stayed home, and Republican voters voted against their own interests. The corporate media will never hold the American people accountable for their political immaturity.

We don’t expect much from the people we elect, and they in turn don’t expect much from us. It is not a decay of leadership. Our leadership is a symptom of our failure, our lack of critical thinking, our ability to be easily frightened, easily manipulated and managed by superficial distractions, and easily misinformed. Or maybe it is us who are selfish. We are who we elect, right?

SPECIAL REPORT

With the 2009 stimulus money running dry and with businesses unnerved by Washington’s political gridlock and brinksmanship, America’s weak “recovery” has stalled, prompting more criticism of President Barack Obama. Robert Parry explores whether these complaints are fair.